In his bestselling book, The Four Hour Work Week, author Tim Ferriss describes the steps he took to reduce the time he spent working in his business, as he took steps to outsource and automate as much as he could.
The book is full of bright ideas, which pretty much anyone brave enough can learn from, and follow. And if you are a busy person, with not enough hours in the day – and too few spent with friends and family – then perhaps you could benefit from exploiting some of the ideas outlined in the book.
One idea that you could easily take from the Tim Ferriss portfolio of steps to reduce stress, is to start using a virtual assistant. This is a step that works well for pretty much any business, whether you are providing a service or selling products, whether you are small or large in scale. You just need to be brave enough to take the first step!
Put simply, a virtual assistant can help you with a range of administrative tasks – and often, it will be essential tasks that you may not be very efficient at. Take, for example, your finances. Everything from generating invoices to sorting out expenses and chasing up payments can be outsourced to a virtual assistant. Some can even act as your bookkeeper, interfacing directly with your accountant.
Then there are sales enquiries, and orders. How do you handle them, and follow up on them? Asking a VA to handle these ensures they go through the correct process that you have defined, and means they will get done in a timely fashion.
What about preparing marketing documents such as Powerpoint presentations, hand-outs and PDF documents? Unless you are really good at preparing these, you may be better off handing them to a virtual assistant, who will be skilled at working across the Microsoft Office software suite, and its individual programmes.
You simply pay a virtual assistant for each task they perform, by the hour. So it is easy to trial your own outsourcing experiment, without a major financial outlay. And, once you feel comfortable with the concept, you can add further tasks to your outsourcing plan, as you are ready.
So, what are you waiting for? Call Time Wise VA today on 0161 211 9837 or contact us here. What will you spend your additional free time on? Make a quick plan, take a look at your to-do list, and see what tasks you could comfortably give to a virtual assistant. Take the plunge and you’ll surely be glad you did. Your plan to get to the 4 hour work week is already under way!